Friday, March 27, 2015

Holy Magenta: NYX Intense Butter Gloss in Spice Cake

Sorry I've been posting so erratically this month! I usually try for one post every three days, but lately it's been two posts in two days, then a break of five or six days, then two more posts in two days. I'm trying not to beat myself up about it, because inspiration comes and goes for us all, but I'm hoping I can get into a more regular pattern soon. I blame March. It's an untrustworthy month in so many ways, and it leads me to do untrustworthy things like make an Ulta order when I've already announced a March-long no-buy on my blog.

"Holy magenta!" really was the phrase that popped into my head when I first saw swatches of NYX's new Intense Butter Gloss in Spice Cake. (My fingers keep wanting to type "Space Cake," for some reason. It's true that the deep shiny fuchsia-magenta is the sort of lip color one would wear to an intergalactic rave.)

Despite my love for NYX's original Butter Glosses (I reviewed Peach Cobbler and Raspberry Tart exactly a year ago), I wasn't terribly excited about the Intense Butter Glosses when I first heard of them. Blogging about beauty has enabled some questionable purchases over the past year, but it's also given me a clearer sense of what kinds of makeup I'm most and least likely to wear, and opaque lip gloss is on the "least likely to wear" list. I prefer my glossy lip colors sheer and my opaque lip colors matte or semi-matte; it's hard to find a bold, opaque gloss that isn't also messy. So I was content in the knowledge that I could skip the Intense Butter Glosses...and then I saw Spice Cake. Holy magenta. When I ordered two discounted Butter London polishes from Ulta during the 21 Days of Beauty sale, I couldn't resist adding Spice Cake to my order, and here we are.

(Nail polish is Butter London Trout Pout.)

The Intense Butter Glosses are identical in size to the OG BGs, though they have metallic plastic lids instead of same-colored ones. They also have the same sugar-cookie scent; Spice Cake smells stronger than the Butter Glosses I own, but it's also newer.

The applicators are similar, though Spice Cake's (left) is longer, broader, and flatter. I don't have much trouble getting a crisp application, but this is the sort of formula that makes me wish I had a clear lip liner to prevent migration and bleeding.

In pigmentation, the two glosses are dramatically different. Here's Spice Cake (left) swatched next to Raspberry Tart:

Compared with the squishy translucent finish of the Butter Glosses, Spice Cake resembles a liquid lipstick. In fact, I'm not sure I know the difference anymore between a liquid lipstick and an opaque gloss, especially with all the hybrid formulas that have entered the market in the last few years. I usually think of liquid lipsticks as longer-lasting and more opaque, but Spice Cake is as pigmented as, say, Rimmel Across the Universe, and it stains my lips considerably. Lip-color genres have become hopelessly muddled, and I say we just enjoy the ride instead of insisting on the Aristotelian unities of lipstick.

Here's Spice Cake swatched alongside a few other purple/plum/magenta/fuchsia lip colors. Left to right: Milani Sangria, Topshop Get Me Bodied, Maybelline Brazen Berry, Spice Cake, Raspberry Tart. Color-wise, Spice Cake looks like a cross between Sangria and Get Me Bodied, and it's actually more pigmented than any of the other four!

I've long suspected NYX of producing makeup meant for Instagram selfies instead of real life (cf. last year's Macaron and Wicked lipsticks), and I wonder if the Intense Butter Glosses aren't another example of this trend. While Spice Cake makes my lips look plump and full, it also comes off on everything I eat or drink, and scrubbing this gloss off water glasses and coffee mugs is surprisingly difficult. I thought about wearing it to have cocktails last night, but I didn't want to do that to the person who would end up washing my martini glass, you know?

Here's Spice Cake at full strength. Since this was taken on an overcast day, it looks darker than it would normally appear (and the past few days have been equally overcast, so I haven't been able to get a better photo):

Despite the formula's determination to stick to the rims of glasses, it doesn't feel sticky on the lips at all. You can also blot off a bit of the shine for a brighter color:

Here we are after a few hours, a cup of coffee, and a roll. Not the prettiest sight, but not completely hideous if you're more than a few inches away from my lips.

As you can see from these photos, the formula is prone to a bit of bleeding. Very few lip formulas bleed or feather on my lips, but this one does--though, again, it's less noticeable from a normal distance. If you often have a problem with this, you might want to skip the Intense Butter Glosses. Unlike the regular BGs, Spice Cake isn't moisturizing, though I didn't find it drying either.

And here's Spice Cake in context. HOLY MAGENTA, am I right? It looks like I've photoshopped the lips onto my face from a different photo. Not a subtle effect.

Will I buy another gloss from this range? Probably not: Space Cake Spice Cake is beautiful, but the formula has done nothing to shake my prejudice against bold, opaque glosses. Still, as such glosses go, this one is superior to most: lightweight, long-lasting, and evenly pigmented.

12 comments:

That really is a glorious color. And there are a couple of shades I've seen swatched from the line that look equally as beautiful, but then I recall that every lip gloss I've ever bought has ended up unworn in my lipstick case. There's something about the temporary nature, and the slick feeling on my lips, of glosses that just drives me mad. I'll wear them once or twice right after I buy them and then go right back to my lipsticks. So I will probably (probably) stay sensible and skip these.

Except SO PRETTY. I'm probably doomed the next time Ulta has a buy one get one half off sale on Nyx.

I'm not sure if I should tell you this, but Ulta actually is having a BOGO 50% off sale on NYX lip products right now! The sale was going on when I bought Spice Cake, too, but I restrained myself from buying another Intense Butter Gloss. (I did buy two lip liners, though.)

I feel the same way that you do about glosses. The only ones I've worn with any frequency are the sheer Butter Glosses and a couple of Revlon glosses, now deceased (Super Natural was a great cool-toned nude, and I might repurchase it eventually). But in general, I try to uphold a moratorium on glosses because I know I won't wear them frequently, no matter how pretty they are. Alas.

I've yet to try ANY Nyx products! But I've been hankering after the Butter Glosses for a long time. I'm definitely not much of an online shopper because I like being able to try things in person, but Nyx are so universally switched and loved, and so affordable, that I feel like it might be worth a gamble. After April though -- I've gone too hard on the beauty spending the past couple of months.

I actually find NYX pretty hit-or-miss, though I've loved the lip products I've tried (with the exception of the Round Lipsticks). The Butter Glosses have my favorite gloss formula, and I'm not a gloss person AT ALL, so that says a lot. I don't think you can go wrong with any of those.

I'm returning to no-buy mode for the foreseeable future, too. Good luck!

liquid lipsticks/opaque glosses tend to not be my kind of thing, but I really love the look of some of these new colors! If I see them on sale, I might pick up one or two ;) Also, how insanely gorgeous does that color look on you???? Love it!

Yes, I love wearing purples and plums with this top! I think it's the slight green undertone that makes it pair so well with those colors.

I was tempted by the Revlon HD lacquers when they first came out, but they seem to have a lot of glitter, which usually isn't my thing. I have Revlon Adorned, a gloss very similar to Pink Ruby, and I almost never wear it!

Agree with Lena - this is a fabulous colour on you with the yellow top. Lately I'm having trouble with liquid lip products. They seem to migrate more now when I had no such issues before, so unless they're of the intense staining/mattifying sort, I'm trying to stay away. My local store recently had a NYX BOGO50% and I closed my eyes and ran past the display, lol.

I thought of yellow as one of my worst colors until I bought this top! I like that it's less warm and brown than most shades of mustard. And good for you for passing up the NYX BOGO sale! I'd be in a sorry plight if NYX were available at any physical stores near me, but since I can only buy it online, I'm more discriminating than I'd be otherwise...

It's so pretty on you, though!! Haha I guess it's good for a short day out? I have a lot of lip colors like that—colors I love but have to really have a high tolerance or short agenda (ha) to wear.

I'm trying to think of a liquid lipstick/opaque gloss that I loooove, and what comes to mind is Bite Beauty, Ellis Faas, and Guerlain. I wouldn't dream of spending that much money on Guerlain these days, but in my defense, they were on sale :p Shiseido has some good ones, too!

Haha, let's be real, most of my days out are short days out. Such is the life of an ABD grad student, i.e. professional shut-in.

I've never been truly disappointed by a liquid lipstick, but some of them require so much work. I wanted to wear Rimmel Across the Universe the other day, but I had to spend way too much time in front of the mirror blotting and adjusting and OH SHIT there it goes outside my lip line again, and I finally thought "screw it" and put on something else.

I've wanted the crazy NYX lipsticks for so long! I almost bought Power and Wrath when I made my Ulta order, but I reminded myself very firmly that they'd get almost no wear, at least not during the spring and summer.